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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Aug 31, 2008 18:49:49 GMT
My turn! This week I would like to know what people think of Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 2, 2008 19:01:37 GMT
It's great stuff. I have often imitated Brawn's "I've had enough!" rant! More detailed thoughts when not between job interviews. Annoyingly, it's one of a group of stories that was missed out in Titan's reprint programme and has not as yet featured in IDW's reprint comics/books. I wish it would get another airing. My copy of Collected Comics 4 is rather dog-eared by now! For those interested, Denyer at tfarchive posted this list of stories missed out by Titan: '►NOT REPRINTED BY TITAN
Transformers Universe 1 Transformers Universe 2 Transformers Universe 3 Transformers Universe 4 G.I. Joe and the Transformers 1 G.I. Joe and the Transformers 2 G.I. Joe and the Transformers 3 G.I. Joe and the Transformers 4 US 33 "Man of Iron" US 34 "Man of Iron" US 43 "Big Broadcast of 2006" TF:TM 1 "The Planet Eater" TF:TM 2 "Judgement Day" TF:TM 3 "The Final Battle" G.I. Joe 138 "Unfoldings" G.I. Joe 139 "Realignments" G.I. Joe 140 "Goin' South" G.I. Joe 141 "Sucker Punch" G.I. Joe 142 "Final Transformations" US G2 02 "Ghosts"
Note: digest versions of Universe, the G.I. Joe crossover and TF:TM adaptation were released by branches of Marvel, during the 80s and 90s.
UK 009 "Man of Iron" UK 010 "Man of Iron" UK 011 "Man of Iron" UK 012 "Man of Iron" UK 013 "The Enemy Within" UK 014 "The Enemy Within" UK 015 "The Enemy Within" UK 016 "The Enemy Within" UK 017 "The Enemy Within" UK 018 "Raiders of the Last Ark" UK 019 "Raiders of the Last Ark" UK 020 "Raiders of the Last Ark" UK 021 "Raiders of the Last Ark" UK 029 "Decepticon Dam-Busters" UK 030 "Decepticon Dam-Busters" UK 031 "The Wrath of Guardian" UK 032 "The Wrath of Grimlock" UK 041 "Christmas Breaker" UK 042 "Crisis of Command" UK 043 "Crisis of Command" UK 044 "Crisis of Command" UK 125 "Ancient Relics" Action Force 24 "Ancient Relics" Action Force 25 "Ancient Relics" Action Force 26 "Ancient Relics" Action Force 27 "Ancient Relics" UK 180 "Big Broadcast of 2006" (in full) UK 181 "Big Broadcast of 2006" (in full) 1985 annual "Plague of the Insecticons" 1985 annual "Missing in Action" (text) 1985 annual "And There Shall Come... A Leader" 1985 annual "Hunted" (text) 1986 annual "In the Beginning..." (text) 1986 annual "To a Power Unknown!" 1986 annual "The Return of the Transformers" (text) 1986 annual "State Games" (text) 1986 annual "The Mission" (text) 1987 annual "Doomsday on Nebulos" (text) 1987 annual "Stylor's Story" (text) 1987 annual "The Final Conflict" (text) 1988 annual ""The Saga of the Transformers" (text) 1988 annual "Prime Bomb" (text) 1988 annual "Peace" 1989 annual "The Quest" (text) 1989 annual "Destiny of the Dinobots" 1990 annual "The Magnificent Six" (text) 1991 annual "Another Time & Place" (text) UK G2 1 "War Without End" UK G2 2 "Warzone" 1994 annual "Day of the Decepticons" (text) 1994 annual "The Dinobots" 1994 annual "Moving Day Planet Earth"
Note: several of these story arcs were reprinted in a Collected Comics line by Marvel during the 80s, giving additional opportunities to track them down.'
From: www.tfarchive.com/comics/titan/reprints/contents.php#notHopefully IDW will print some of these? -Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Sept 3, 2008 21:42:37 GMT
It's solid, uncomplicated stuff with a decent enough premise. The problems with them chopping the last two installments in half does mean the ending stutters along.
The art is great, I just wish we'd had John Ridgway throughout, not that it's any slur against Mike Collins who was a top notch artist for Transformers it's just I have a fondness for John Ridgway, although I imagine he'd started on Who by then.
The trial by combat is a bit sci-fi cliche and while it works on the Decepticon side of things, it doesn't seem to gel with the Autobots. One of the best takes on Megatron in the comic, cold and calculating and not the mad fool we'd soon be lumbered with.
Andy
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2008 15:24:45 GMT
Its been a while since I read The Enemy Within. I can remember Brawn going a bit mad in it but thats all. I'll have to dig out my issues at some time and give them a re-read.
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Post by legios on Sept 5, 2008 20:05:13 GMT
"The Enemy Within"
It isn't a terribly original story - "goodies and baddies both have problems with one of their members going rogue, and have to try to sort the problem out" but what makes it a good story is in the telling of it. The way that the Autobots and Decepticons react to Brawn and Starscream's actions defines the two factions wonderfully. The Autobots seem genuinely benevolent and heroic as they go out of their way to try to understand what has happened to Brawn and to restrain him without harming him. Whereas the Decepticons are firmly established as operating by the logic of the pirate crew or criminal gang - you don't back-talk the leader unless you can back it up, and no-one gets to just walk away. It establishes the different character of the two groups nice and clearly, without feeling like it is talking down to its audience.
Starscreams plan in the mid-section of the story is brilliantly stupid - "I'll smash loads of humans to prove how tough I am, then they'll make me leader". It sounds good at first glance, but then you realise that Megatron will still be tougher and meaner than Starscream, and that the other Decepticon's are certain to be more scared of him than Screamer. But that is what I like about Starscream's portrayal here - he has ambition but nothing with which to back it up. He wants to lead but doesn't actually possess the skill, or native cunning to actually manage it. Indeed, the only time he engages his brain is when he is desperately beginning for his life.
Megatron, by contrast, is very impressive in this story. Rather than the barmy tyrant of questionable intelligence we will see later he is portrayed as intelligent and cunning. He has the ruthlessness to do what he must do to maintain his position of leadership, and the ability to turn a liability to his advantage. His decision to embroil the Autobots in Starscream's trial by combat turns an unfortunate necessity into a win-win scenario. Not bad going for a bit of improvisation.
The trial-by-combat is a bit odd, not that the Decepticons would engage in it - their internal dynamics do seem to be patterned after classic movie Viking raiders and pirates after all - but that the Autobots would also go along with it. It doesn't entirely fit with the "Peaceful Utopia" that we were told Cybertron was before the Decepticons emerged.
That said, what I really find notable is that it is the Autobots that opt to cheat in this story. Conventionally one would expect the evil Decepticons to be the ones breaking the rules of the contest, and the Autobots to be hamstrung by their rigid and honorable adherence to them. Not one bit of it. Starscream is the one who stays within the rules of engagements, and would have won an inevitable victory if things had proceeded fairly. It is the Autobots who end up pulling a bunko-booth shell-game. I think that is an interesting element, and steps away from the black-and-white adherence to an idea of being always honest and fair no matter who the opponent is.
It isn't a complicated story, but it is an entertaining one with a decent amount of characterisation for the principles. Where it does suffer is in the structuring of it for publication. As Andy has observed, the fact that it is in five parts means that the toe-to-toe duel of Brawn against Starscream and the final resolution is broken into two parts which unfortunately has a bad impact on the pacing of things. It would have flowed much better if parts four and five had been printed in the same issue.
It would have been good to have John Ridgway on all five parts - just for the sake of having him on Transformers longer if nothing else, but sadly it was not to be.
Good stuff nevertheless, and a good outing for Brawn who was fairly much underutilised in the rest of the comics run.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 5, 2008 21:10:14 GMT
Brawn clearly causes at least one human death in this story. You don't get that in kiddy comics these days!
Hmmm, maybe that's why Brawn faded to the background. There's probably a story in that.
-Ralph
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The Huff
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Post by The Huff on Sept 6, 2008 9:35:17 GMT
A story set after The Enemy Within? .....
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 6, 2008 17:02:49 GMT
I would say so.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 12, 2008 15:20:42 GMT
Just for shits and giggles (and possibly despair), let's jump publishers and have another look at Dreamwave's second 'Generation 1' series AKA...
WAR AND PEACE
It's been a few years. Maybe it's aged well. You never know.
Muh huh huh.
-Ralph
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2008 16:21:06 GMT
The only way a Dreamwave comic can age well is if it develops dog ears, gets scuffed and ripped on some of the pages and signs of fading appear.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 13, 2008 8:15:51 GMT
Haven't read it.
I've read Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', though.
Are they similar?
*runs for cover*
Martin
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2008 9:52:19 GMT
If Tolstoy only wrote bullshit then yes, they are similar.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 14, 2008 7:04:01 GMT
Um, no, he is widely considered the greatest writer of prose in the history of the planet.
I take it none of his genius rubbed off on Dreamwave, then.
Martin
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Post by legios on Sept 14, 2008 20:46:28 GMT
Um, no, he is widely considered the greatest writer of prose in the history of the planet. I take it none of his genius rubbed off on Dreamwave, then. That would be.... a very fair bet. A very fair bet indeed. So:- "War and Peace": I recently encountered the whole of this series for the first time. When it came out I had thoroughly given-up on Dreamwave's Transformers comics (part way through their first mini-series) so my experience of it had been restricted to a few snippets I encountered of other peoples issues at various times. Now I know how lucky I was to be spared originally. I am trying hard not to use the word "story" in connection with these comics, not because there isn't one but because the comics themselves don't seem to know what it is supposed to be. The series starts out on one tack - Shockwave has reunified Cybertron under his rule and intends to use it as a powerbase for conquest - only to jetisson that part way through for - Autobots and Decepticons fighting each other, on Cyberton! - and then finally settle on - Shockwave has manipulated all the events in this series and the last mini-series to allow him to open a big door behind which is some unrevealed McGuffin that will allow him to.... something or other. I'm making it all sound much more coherent than it actually is, I apologise. When it is described it sound like plot development but in actual fact it is five issues of random events strung together, followed by am issue of Shockwave making up a plot to connect them together and telling it to the reader in excruciatingly long monologue. There are entire panels, and sometimes entire multi-page set-pieces which appear to have no function other than to say "Do you remember this bit from the Kewl Cartoon of the Transformers in the eighties when everything was wicked sweet?". Rehashes of and quotations from the animated movie are just plonked down without any real sense of context or any relevance to what is going on around them. The first issue _I think_ appears to be attempting an In Media Res opening to the series. There is nothing wrong with a good In Media Res beginning - the first "Indiana Jones" film and the first and fourth Star Wars films both do it - but unfortunately this series doesn't have a good one. Instead of dropping you into the middle of a story and having you catch up as you go, it simply drops the reader into a big fight between robots and assumes that this will be enough to catch your interest. The first page of the first issue basically sets out the stall as - "Look, the kewl robots from the eighties and they are fighting!" - and the rest of the issue carries on in that vein. To make things worse they actually have a line of dialogue from Optimus that amounts to "I don't know why we are in the arctic, why the Decepticons are here or why we are fighting, but we have to fight on because they are Evil Decepticons and we are Heroic Autobots!". When even your protagionists do not know why they are doing what they are doing, and this isn't an actual plot point, then you know something is badly wrong. And when the series ends - without ever revealing what the McGuffin was, or anything about it there is a completely random page that seems to belong to some other series. IDW's miniseries may have a tendency to end with plot threads left flapping in the air, but they don't generally actually present you with an entire page that doesn't belong in anyway to the story you have just read. Amusingly, the very last line of dialogue of "War and Peace" is "what?". Which goes a long way to mimicking my reaction to it. The art is.... unbelievably horrible. It fails on so many levels - perspective goes completely south more often than not, composition is questionable, and the storytelling is almost incoherent. A truly horrible reading experience. By the time I had finished the first issue I was tempted to throw the series across the room just to get it far away from me - as Ralph and Andy can testify. Dreamwave's "War and Peace" has to be a candidate for inclusion on the list of the very worst comics I have ever read. It skates right past "bad enough all involved should be embaressed" and right on into the realm of the offensively bad. Rant over, we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. Karl
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Sept 17, 2008 7:41:46 GMT
I must re-read it immediately Mx
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chrisl
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Post by chrisl on Sept 17, 2008 11:48:32 GMT
War & Piece also has such highlights as:
1) Ultra Magnus being Prime's "brother" - aka the white prime cab from the original Ultra Magnus Toy makes its first appearance in a TF comic.
2) Gnaw is a friend of Hot Rod's movie group on Cybertron.
3) Unbelievably dark colouring and bad use of the blur effect on photoshop.
4) Less plot than Eldorado
All because YOU THE FANS demanded it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2008 18:56:03 GMT
The only fans that demanded stories such as Ultra Magnus being Prime's brother and suchlike are the ones that write terrible fanfiction.
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Sept 17, 2008 21:01:10 GMT
Well, I just skim-read the first issue and, in all honesty, it should probably be buried in lime.
Mx
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 17, 2008 21:05:21 GMT
I was going to do a long reasoned critique on it, but it would be like making a man watch in muted torment as you eat his chicken tikka masala in front of him. It would just be too cruel and unusual a kind of punishment to inflict on myself.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Sept 18, 2008 17:23:51 GMT
At the heart of the story is the germ of an idea that had there been an editor could have been knocked into shape.
During the time Optimus and co have spent on Earth the war is over, the entire planet has been united and the old allegiances are done. Furman did it sort of with Generation 2 and Alan Moore did great work with it on Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S. book.
However instead of giving us anything decent we were subjected to a barrage of fanwank dressed up as homages. So it's simpler to just list all the things wrong with the book.
1: Dark colouring 2: Absolutely no attention paid to the previous mini series. 3: Ultra Magnus being Prime's brother. 4: Incessant quoting of the Movie. 5: Blitzwing being on Cybertron (already seen in first mini (see point 2). 6: Easter eggs and references as story points as opposed to just minor nods to the long term fan. 7: Piss poor layouts of pages despite there being a LAYOUT ASSISTANT. 8. Lack of clear storytelling within said layouts. 9: Terrible, terrible ending for the last page of the mini-series. 10: Inexcusable copying of images on pages. Kup from cover of issue 4 is reused in the interior of said issue. 11: The writer's having no idea of how to pace a story. 12: Issue six being the exposition issue, or all of the story we neglected to put in the previous five issues. 13: Having Jazz given a japanese name of Meister. FANWANK ALERT.
There's probably loads more but I'd have to read the thing again to be more accurate and I'm not willing to do that.
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 19, 2008 10:42:10 GMT
I also thought the idea that Cybertron was so knackered that it literally shutdown for millions of years, symbiotically disabling the Transformers in the process was the germ of a decent idea that could have generated a new and interesting take on The Transformers. Sadly, sod all was done with it.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Sept 19, 2008 21:24:15 GMT
Indeed, that concept has all sorts of interest implications in terms of the nature of the Transformers, the nature of Cybertron and how it functions. There was a lot of room to explore that idea. Instead it was kicked far into the outfield to make way for quotations and random robot fighting.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 19, 2008 22:27:22 GMT
Indeed. Had there been an editor on the book, there were the raw ingredients of a decent story buried in there. Ah well.
As for the art, I'm not convinced Pat Lee drew that much of it. Compare the compositions in panels and the layouts to the first G1 mini. Whether it's to individual taste or not, the art is significently easier to follow in that series. Even allowing for a 'Layout Assistant' on War and Peace, the pencil work rarely looks like the work of the same person. I suspect much of the art was ghosted.
-Ralph
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Sept 19, 2008 23:01:51 GMT
I wonder if he didn't pay those ghosts.
Wait, no I don't.
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dyrl
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Post by dyrl on Sept 21, 2008 18:43:27 GMT
I remember reading the first page of the first issue...
I might be misquoting, but it went something like:
Hotrod: Bah Wheep Grana wheep nibibong?
Hotrod: Now light our darkest hour!
Shockwave to Devastator: Let the slaughter begin!
Grimlock: Me Grimlock no kisser! Me king!
Wheelie: Wheelie say find friend today!
Dirge: Death comes to something or other.
Ultra Magnus: I can't deal with that now!
Elita One: I love you Optimus Prime!
Bumblebee: What?
The End.
Pete
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 22, 2008 22:42:49 GMT
A very succinct summary. Well, every story is someone's favourite. Except for that one, it would seem. Now, back to Marvel and using the randomiser... CITY OF FEAR-Ralph
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dyrl
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Post by dyrl on Sept 23, 2008 6:47:36 GMT
People don't like city of fear?? Why not? I have the titan paper back and it's one of my favorites. First of all - I like it because it steps back from the epic space-opera ark that had been the whole Time-Travel saga and elaborates on what is happening "meanwhile." It's a very well paced story with the plot seeming to develop fairly naturally. Flame is a good villain with a suitably non-pathos inducing purpose, and having Ultra Magnus in charge of the sparklers and effectively the lead protagonist is good too. Finally, I liked how Flywheels was momentarily elevated from non-essential bit character status. The zombie armies are a nice touch; perhaps a bit silly that they are able to over run the underground resistance and jail the top leadership while the Decepticons couldn't but... then again; the Decepticons seem to stay within the bounds of conventional means... In any event - people don't like this story? It has Trypticon - that's got to count for something Also - a Zombie tries to eat Broadside's brain; that's a fun scene Pete
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Post by grahamthomson on Sept 23, 2008 7:47:47 GMT
Damn, I missed sharing my opinion of War and Peace. Probably for the best.
Now "City of Fear" I enjoyed. I pretty much agree with Pete's comments. I remember at the time thinking the Broadside brain scene to be a bit gratuitous for such a colourful comic!
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 23, 2008 15:30:55 GMT
People don't like city of fear?? Why not? In any event - people don't like this story? It has Trypticon - that's got to count for something No-one said they didn't like 'City of Fear', Pete. Ralph said no-one liked 'War and Peace'. Then he nominated 'City of Fear' as the next story up for discussion. 'City of Fear' was pretty scary when you didn't know what was going on. Putting the scary element to one side, in many ways it makes a lot of sense: The Autobot fugitives expect to be able to stay clear of mass Decepticon attacks, because although the Deceps greatly outnumber the Autobots, they are spread thin over a big planet. On the other hand, the number of dead Transformers lying amongst piles of rubbish could be of the order of Cybertron's original pre-war population, which wasn't spread so thinly. If someone can revive them and control them remotely, their army would vastly outnumber the planet's living population, and would be able to launch massed attacks like the ones seen here (we never see Decepticons in such great numbers). It also makes sense that only the recently killed, like Impactor, would still have recognisable paintwork. Other aspects don't make sense: How are ruined, crumbling robots able to punch their fists clean through the bodies of undamaged, fully armour-plated robots, pull their heads off, and so on? What are Ultra Magnus and the Sparkabots jabbering on about when they order Flywheels not to use lethal force on the dead? And could Furman not make even a token effort to give the Sparkabots personalities? But 'City of Fear' wasn't really about logic, plot or characterisation, but rather it was about atmosphere and suspense, and for those it gets 10/10. That's the two-parter, I'm talking about. 'Meltdown' and 'Legion of the Lost' weren't nearly as good, since the zombies got unscary pretty damn fast (losing Dan Reed didn't help), the Wreckers were pretty unimpressive (no Roadbuster and Whirl in sight), and the least said about Trypticon the better. It would have been a greater service to the character to leave him to be remembered as he was in 'King of the Hill' than to bring him back like this. The giant Decepticon crawling thingy that the Duocons flew in over in 'City of Fear' looked awesome though. Martin
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Post by legios on Sept 23, 2008 20:47:24 GMT
I haven't read "City of Fear" in a long time, so I am very much going on memory in this regard.
I remember it being one of those stories that I wasn't entirely sold on at the time. Zombies in my robot comic seemed a little odd to my younger self. These days I can't imagine anything more appropriate. After all, the traditional horror fiction zombie is a dead body animated by malicious spirit - something that is far easier to acheive with a transformer body that a human. Take a body that has flatlined, upload a simplistic autopilot program designed primarily just to drive the body around and smash stuff and you have the classic zombie plague. It is one of those ideas that seems out of genre until you stop and think about it, and then I can't help but feel that it is an incredibly appropriate idea.
I'll admit I never gave much thought to the fact that they seemed much stronger than the "living" transformers. It kind of skated past as part of the "Zombies are stronger than people" trope. If pressed then I would probably handwave it in terms of them not having the same safety settings as the functional. Normally, Autobots and Decepticons probably have safety protocols to prevent them putting too much stress on their structural elements and servos - possibly the "zombified" either don't have these protocols or they are turned off. So they hit harder and exert greater strength, but at the cost of progressive internal and external damage.
I don't recall the story well enough, whether the zombification was shown to be transmissable - if the reanimated could download the program they were running into scrapped or badly-damaged victims then it would add another nasty string to their bow. Then not only would you have to stop a force that doesn't care how many losses it takes and is hard to disable without complete dissassembly, but you would have to do it without taking losses yourself. Because every loss you suffer strengthens the enemy....
(Magnus et al's hang up against using lethal force I would assume to be based on an unconcious "moving things are alive" mindset, which leads them to treat the reanimated robots as being functional transformers capable of redemption. Rather than drones driven by a robocidal instruction set.)
I don't recall anything about the handling of Trypticon in this story at all. For some reason he made no impression on me whatsoever - except for one thing. I seem to recall a full-page panel shot when he first showed up, which had the "if it wasn't bad enough already, now Godzilla shows up to thump the other monsters" sort of vibe to it. Perhaps it doesn't come from this story, or perhaps it never existed at all - but it is the image that the story title always brings to mind.
I actually liked Flame as a character, because he wasn't driven by an overwhelming urge to conquer the universe or to BECOME A LIVING GOD!. It made for a nice change of pace to have an opponent whose threat wasn't rooted in being villianous for villiany's sake
Karl
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